Lori Vallow Daybell pleads not guilty, jury trial set for April

Lori Vallow Daybell has pleaded not guilty to two felony charges as her case advances to a jury trial set to begin in April.

(EastIdahoNews)


Save Story
Leer en español

Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes

This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.

ST. ANTHONY, Idaho — Lori Vallow Daybell, who is referred to as Lori Vallow in court documents, has pleaded not guilty to two felony charges as her case advances to a jury trial set to begin in April.

Vallow appeared over Zoom before District Judge Dane H. Watkins Jr. who summarized the two felony counts of conspiracy to commit destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence.

Seated next to her attorney, Mark Means, Vallow showed little emotion during the 5-minute hearing. She was dressed in a blue sweater as she sat behind the defendant’s table. Because of COVID-19 precautions, she wore a medical mask over her face.

Means entered the not guilty plea on behalf of Vallow.

The jury trial is set to begin on April 2 with a pretrial conference on March 22.

Vallowl is married to Chad Daybell. The man who owned the property where investigators found the remains of her two children 7-year-old Joshua “JJ” Vallow and 16-year-old Tylee Ryan.

Since her arrest on Feb. 20 in Kauai, Hawaii, she was brought back to Idaho and has been held in the Madison County Jail.

Daybell is also facing felony charges. Last month he pleaded not guilty to two felony counts of conspiracy to commit destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence, and two felony counts of destruction, alteration or concealment of evidence.

Once she is arraigned, her attorney, Mark Means, will have 60 days to file a motion if he wants to change venues for the trial.

His attorney, John Prior, has asked the trial be moved while also asking the case be dismissed altogether. Daybell’s jury trial is set to run from Jan. 11 to 29, in Fremont County. A pretrial conference is set for Dec. 10.

Earlier this month, Special Prosecutor Rob Wood asked that the couple's jury trials be combined for efficiency. He said in a motion that he expects to use the same evidence and witnesses in the trials.

Both Watkins and District Judge Steven Boyce who oversee Daybell’s case has not made any ruling on combining the cases.

Most recent Idaho stories

Related topics

Idaho
Eric Grossarth

    STAY IN THE KNOW

    Get informative articles and interesting stories delivered to your inbox weekly. Subscribe to the KSL.com Trending 5.
    By subscribing, you acknowledge and agree to KSL.com's Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.

    KSL Weather Forecast